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  Kitty gave a loud laugh. “That’s a new one. Their shower is a little bigger than mine, but how about you just use mine from now on? I don’t use my trailer for much, other than for travel and for my own body care, so it’s much less likely to be ‘conspicuously occupied’ when you feel the need to smell floral. I’ll walk you to the trailer then.”

  “Thanks, ma’am.”

  “I realize we’re in the South, but if you ‘ma’am’ me again, I’ll spank you like a red-headed stepchild. My name is Kitty. Or ‘that fuzzy lady’. Anything but ‘ma’am’. I don’t need help feeling old.”

  Caroline giggled all the way up to the carousel platform. If everyone was like Kitty, she thought living in Arcanium might not be bad at all.

  * * * *

  Caroline couldn’t find a blow dryer in the bathroom, so she just squeezed the water out of her hair and let it dry naturally. When Caroline walked out, Kitty was waiting for her in her living area, which also mingled seamlessly with the bedroom and kitchen.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Caroline said. “I’m pretty sure I can figure out where the big top is. It’s that big canvas thing in the middle, right?”

  Kitty ruffled her hair. “Don’t be a smartass. I know it’s hard for the new members to adjust, so I want you to know I’m available if you need me. I don’t do performances. I mostly just sit pretty in my Oddity Row tent during viewing hours, so I’m often free when other people are busy. I have an open door policy until about midnight. Unlike most of our fellow cast, I’m less likely to make anything rock around here. I prefer to keep my encounters outside the circus. Yes, Caroline, I have sex and plenty of it when I want it,” Kitty said.

  Caroline probably could have been more tactful with her incredulous double-take. She was ashamed that it had been seen.

  It made her even more ashamed when she realized Kitty probably dealt with that incredulity from almost everyone who heard she had a sex life. Caroline’s feet weighed heavy in their sandals as they left Kitty’s trailer.

  “Having sex where you work becomes…complicated,” Kitty continued as though Caroline wasn’t avoiding eye contact, tacit forgiveness. She didn’t sound aggravated, just a tad ginger. “However, just a friendly warning, I seem to be a minority in the circus when it comes to separating work and play.”

  “Good to know,” Caroline said. “Looking forward to the awkwardness.”

  “Most of them have no formal boundaries on the matter. All you’ll have to do is turn around and walk away and it won’t be awkward, unless you’re the one feeling awkward, which they’ll see as your problem, not theirs,” Kitty said.

  “I grew up around theater geeks,” Caroline said. “I have a bulk supply of brain bleach and know how to make a surreptitious exit. I’ll survive.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Kitty said, leading her in the entrance of the big top. They walked through the ring to the red curtain for backstage access.

  “You know, you’ve been very quiet. I expected more questions,” Kitty said.

  “I haven’t formed a list yet. I get the gist of what I’m supposed to be doing, since the carousel isn’t that complicated,” Caroline said.

  Kitty held the curtain open for her. Caroline ducked under the velvet, the scent of sausage and eggs hitting her all at once.

  “No, I mean about—” Kitty began.

  Caroline waved to Maya, who sat with Madoc and Valorie and one of the tumblers.

  Behind them, a large aquarium was filled with water, like one an escape artist would use. The mermaid had propped herself over the edge to eat her breakfast in a large tortilla, presumably since a plate would be hard to balance while swimming.

  Caroline paused. Some people were really into method acting, but she didn’t think spending all one’s time in water with a mermaid tail around one’s legs was healthy. Did she sleep in that thing too?

  Caroline left that curiosity for now and took a better and closer look at the cast, more casual outside the context of their circus personas.

  The Ringmaster was nowhere to be seen, but she caught sight of the clowns standing in the shadows farther backstage, not eating, just interacting with each other so quietly that she couldn’t hear them.

  At another table, Lady Sasha and Lord Mikhail sat with the Lizard Man. On the other side of that table, the short man chattered and the tall man listened. The Rotting Man sat at a table alone across from the Tattooed Man, the sword swallower, the two Human Torsos and the conjoined twins. The female Human Torso had a contraption on the stump of her arm that connected to a spoon so that she could feed herself. Caroline thought it was pretty ingenious.

  At another table, the fire-eater, a black man with burn scars around his mouth and hands and some of his arms, ate with the Cyclops. They were hunched over their separate table, keeping their heads down. In the back, near the clowns, there were two attached cages, one with a naked woman and another with a naked man.

  “Um…”

  Those weren’t oddities. They were people. Naked people in cages.

  She looked over her shoulder at Kitty. “Do I want to know?” If this was some kind of sex game, Caroline didn’t want to say anything wrong, because of the aforementioned lack of boundaries she’d been warned about.

  “Caroline, did Bell tell you what this circus is?” Kitty asked, her prodigious eyebrows drawing together where they already connected over the bridge of her nose.

  “I don’t understand,” Caroline said. “Besides a circus and quasi-carnival?”

  “Sweet fancy Moses, he didn’t. Wonderful,” Kitty said, rubbing her forehead. “Bell,” she added more loudly, “you have to stop doing this.”

  “Doing what?” Madoc asked, looking up from his meal, an innocent smile out of place on his face.

  “You know what I’m talking about. Don’t play coy with me,” Kitty said. She rested a hand on the small of Caroline’s back to lead her to Madoc’s table.

  Maybe Kitty believed she was being subtle about guiding Caroline around the tables instead of going between them, which would be quicker. Was Kitty afraid that the sword swallower would stab Caroline or that the Lizard Man would bite her if she got too close?

  Maya set her fork down. “Wait, you did the thing to her that you did to me? You didn’t tell her?”

  Madoc’s lips twitched, the smile becoming less innocent, but it wasn’t malicious either. “All things in their time, Maya. You should know better.”

  “You just liked watching me run around and squeak like a rat in a cage,” Maya retorted. “Do you do that to everyone? Is it some kind of hazing ritual to see the priceless looks on our faces?”

  “I can understand you not telling Maya,” Kitty said. “But the least you could do is show some courtesy to someone who voluntarily joined the family.”

  “Courtesy,” Madoc said, rolling his tongue around the word as though it was unfamiliar. “What exactly do you take me for?”

  “What was the game here?” Kitty asked. “Look at her, Bell. What did you want to happen to her before you gave the big reveal?”

  Caroline stepped away from Kitty’s comforting hand, maternal though it was. She didn’t need a mother right now. With all the crypticisms volleying back and forth between the veteran members of Arcanium, she just wanted answers. She’d thought her work here was pretty straightforward, but if she had to do anything illegal, she was going to be out of here so fast, she’d leave a dust cloud.

  “This isn’t a front for a crime syndicate or drug cartel, right?” Caroline asked. Because she was pretty sure that would be worse than stripping. “Oh God, tell me it’s not a human trafficking ring.”

  “Absolutely not,” Madoc replied. “Arcanium is my circus, pure and simple.”

  “Hardly pure, Bell,” Maya said.

  “There is purity in what I do,” Madoc said.

  “If you’re so proud of it, then tell Caroline. You owe her that much for making her wish into the circus for your amusement,” Kitty said.


  “I didn’t make her wish anything,” Madoc said.

  “You may not have forced a wish out of her, but damn it, Bell, she wouldn’t be here if she didn’t wish it or if you hadn’t nudged a wish out of her. What do you want from her?” Kitty asked.

  “Maybe I’m getting exactly what I want right at this moment, with the two of you yelling at me. Caroline’s taking it much better than you.”

  “She’s taking it better than us because she doesn’t know the shit she’s gotten into,” Maya said, swallowing back what seemed like the early stirrings of anger, but her more shaped eyebrows were still just as drawn as Kitty’s. “Kitty’s right. You owe it to her, especially as a voluntary, to tell her what’s going on.”

  “I don’t know,” Caroline said in annoyance. “I was kind of enjoying the guessing game. How bad can it be if the circus isn’t concealing crime?”

  “Well, crime is relative,” Maya said.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s not,” Caroline said.

  “You’d be surprised,” Maya replied dryly. “You know what? I need some air.” She grabbed her plate and left out the back without a glance at Madoc.

  He followed her exit with his gaze, his expression placid, but it also held that same guarded quality that Caroline had observed before.

  Maya avoided the clowns on her way out, walking deliberately around them—which was another strange thing to do. The clowns were creepy, sure, but it probably wasn’t a good idea for Maya to live in a circus if she had clown phobia.

  “Do I want to know?” Caroline repeated to Kitty.

  “No. Maya knows what she’s in bed with, but that doesn’t mean she always has to like it,” Kitty said quietly.

  They’d already established Madoc wasn’t a crime boss or a pimp. Was there something worse?

  “And what’s the deal about wishes, my wishes, forcing wishes? I mean, yeah, it sounded kind of formal when he asked whether I wished to do what I’d already agreed to do. What, is he some kind of genie?” Caroline asked, laughing a little. There was nothing funny about it, but this whole conversation was unbelievable. No one was actually saying anything. She would ask a straightforward question if she had even the remotest idea of what to ask in order to get an equally straightforward answer.

  No one was laughing with her. Madoc’s unruffled expression remained inscrutable. Kitty crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him.

  Well, it might not be worse than joining a gang, but now Caroline wondered whether she’d joined a bunch of crazy people. Artistic types could be eccentric. But did they really believe their mild-mannered boss was some mystical genie figure?

  “You’re serious,” Caroline said, staring between everyone, most of whom had stopped what they were doing to watch. “Next thing you’ll tell me that the mermaid is an actual, honest-to-goodness mermaid. I know a sucker’s born every minute, but I’m not one of them, okay? Initiation is over. I didn’t have the patience for sorority pledging, and this joke has played itself out.”

  “For the love of…” The tumbler sitting in front of the mermaid tossed his fork down. Then he vaulted onto the table. His boots shook the faux wood and creaked the folding hinges as he crouched before her. “Arcanium’s a circus run by demons, and if you don’t believe it, crumpet, sorry to burst your cynical bubble.”

  His British accent was rough, but it didn’t hurt to hear it. She’d always liked British and Australian accents.

  The tumbler was a good-looking man, even crouched like a gargoyle on the edge of the table, staring into her eyes. His were bright blue, so bright she thought they might be contacts. His long black hair brushed his shoulders, setting off the pointed bone structure of his pale face. His arms were ropy and strong. When he smiled, there were too many straight, white teeth.

  Then those teeth went sharp. Before her eyes, the ends extended and narrowed to jagged, serrated, interlocked points, like a cross between a wolf and a shark. His skin shifted in a shimmer to a sickly greenish-yellow, and that pretty black hair clumped together to form tentacles that draped over his shoulders like resting snakes.

  “This is no illusion, love, no magic trick—just plain magic, and the sooner you accept it, the sooner we can all go back to our breakfast without all this infernal yelling.” The tumbler curled his claw-tipped finger and pushed Caroline’s open mouth closed. “The humans here always seem to get their dander up every time one of us demons acts like ourselves, as though they forget what we are when we wear our human faces. You’re young, but if you’re smart, you won’t forget like they do.”

  If Caroline’s mouth had still been open, she would have been soundlessly trying to form words, but she couldn’t seem to make her jaw work at all.

  “I’m not mad at demons being demons or jinn being jinn,” Kitty said. “But if you’re going to work with humans as equals when they’re voluntary, I don’t think I’m asking much that we be shown a little respect.”

  “We don’t eat or torture you,” the tumbler said, shrugging. “Bell doesn’t allow it, for whatever bewildering reason knocking about his jinnish skull. What more do you want of us? So don’t flinch, cream puff,” he added. He ran the smooth side of that black claw over Caroline’s cheek.

  She stiffened but didn’t have the presence of mind to flinch—still sure in her numb way that the punchline was coming any second.

  “Besides, Lennon doesn’t eat people anyway,” Valorie added, sounding bored. “So don’t let him intimidate you. He’s got scary-looking chompers, and they’d probably tear a good hole in you, but he has no taste for human flesh.”

  “As though I haven’t proven you wrong a hundred times before, love,” Lennon said, his shark grin widening farther than a human grin could reach as he turned his electric blue attention to where Valorie was still eating her breakfast.

  “I don’t think the new girl is interested in your innuendo,” Valorie replied.

  “It’s like I need Cliff’s Notes to understand what anyone’s saying,” Caroline said. “Demons, jinn, wishes, eating people… What the fuck, dude?”

  She backed away. Not necessarily out of fear, but because if she stayed where she was, she might start poking and prodding at Lennon to make sure he was real and not a figment of her psychotic imagination. The more she backed away, the more the cast exposed themselves for what they were.

  The tall man and the short man showed their own sharp teeth—different from Lennon’s, but just as sharp. Their eyes inked black to the edges.

  Lady Sasha and Mikhail’s eyes were red as blood moons. If they hadn’t been so close to the tall and short man, she might not have even realized they weren’t human, since the rest of their bodies looked relatively normal, if unusually perfect.

  And now the Lizard Man’s teeth, skin and alligator eyes made sense. He glared at her as he proceeded to eat his eggs raw, shell and all. If she wasn’t mistaken, there was also a dead mouse on his plate.

  “All of you?” Caroline asked, still backing away until she hit a wooden crate. Then she started toward the curtain.

  “Not all of us,” Kitty said. She approached Caroline the way a person might approach a feral kitten, afraid she was going to bolt at any second. “I’m not a demon, Caroline. Neither is Maya or Valorie. Most of us are human, actually. Lennon wasn’t exactly clear. Not all the demons run Arcanium. Arcanium is Bell’s baby, and he’s jinn, not demon. The Ringmaster is, though. He’s responsible for certain aspects of the circus as well. But you probably won’t deal with him much, so don’t you worry about him. Or the clowns. Or Lord Mikhail and Lady Sasha.”

  “The clowns…” Caroline said weakly. She didn’t know why her legs weren’t holding her up as steadily as they should be. After all, none of this was real. She was still dreaming, as vivid a dream as she’d had earlier. Something she’d eaten—maybe all that fried food she wasn’t supposed to have.

  “Well, Lord Mikhail and Lady Sasha will have an effect on you, since they’re incubus and succubus, but they can’t help that. Yo
u’re a part of Arcanium now, though, and that means you’re untouchable,” Kitty assured her. “None of them can hurt you.”

  “Don’t be so hasty,” Lennon said. He swung his legs down so that he was sitting on the edge of the table, his feet on the bench. “No need to make us into harmless puppies.”

  “I’m with Lennon. She’s still got to watch out for the Ringmaster—and for Bell,” Valorie said. “Not the way outsiders have to, but still…”

  “You know what? This is crazy. You’re all crazy. And I’m not going to let you drag me down into the crazy with you,” Caroline said, holding up her hands defensively. “Clearly, my decision to run away and join the circus has become one of those cautionary tales. I’m just going to leave now.”

  “You can’t leave, Caroline,” Madoc called after her as she pushed through the curtain.

  She ran through the circus ring and out of the big top, closing her eyes against the sun. Even though it was already incredibly hot and beating down on her like a cudgel, it was an odd relief that the sun still shone. It had been dark backstage, as backstages tended to be. The more she ran, heading toward the carousel to grab her stuff, the less anything in the dark seemed possible—and the crazier the circus folk became, from Madoc himself to Kitty. She couldn’t believe she’d thought Kitty was a nice, safe person.

  Either they were lying or nuts. No matter which one was true, these people were neither nice nor safe. She couldn’t go home, not after sending that email to her dad, but she certainly couldn’t stay here.

  The carousel was moving when she ran around the big top, and as it rotated toward her, she stopped in her tracks. Madoc was riding the spider sidesaddle, relaxed, not winded at all, although he had to have run to get there before her.

  “I told you, Caroline, you can’t leave,” he said.

  Screw her stuff. She could call the police as soon as she found someone with a cell phone or a landline, and they could get it from him. There was nothing in that carousel that was worth her life.